The present invention relates in general to an improvement on the key mechanism in use for a woodwind musical instrument, and more particularly to an improved and useful pad for use with a key cup of the woodwind musical instrument.
As is well known, in a general woodwind musical instrument construction, there are provided a plurality of finger keys around a body or tubular cylinder portion of a woodwind musical instrument. Each of the finger keys comprises a key cup of generally flat and circular shape mechanically operatively connected or linked to the tubular cylinder body of the musical instrument so as to operatively close the tone hole by the manipulation of an instrument player, and a felt pad fitted snugly into the key cup to be able to positively close the tone hole.
In such arrangement of the woodwind musical instrument, it is essential for the key cup or hence the piece of felt pad to positively close the tone hole, when manipulated or pushed by the finger of an instrument player, in such a manner that there is no air escape from between the felt pad and the circumference of the tone hole. In the conventional arrangement of the woodwind musical instrument, the felt pad is covered with a piece of fish skin over the bottom surface thereof facing the tone hole, and consequently, after a long term use or play of the woodwind musical instrument, the felt pad has inevitably a tendency to expand due to moisture in the breath or respiration of the instrument player. Therefore, when the felt pad is left as is for a long time, it would get hardened or lose its elasticity of flexibility, thus resulting in a possibly incomplete closure by thus deteriorated pad upon the tone hole. Further, the fish skin piece would get dry, turning to be hard or lose its flexibility due to dryness of the ambient air, and then the piece would be likely cracked. Such disorder in the conventional key arrangement of the instrument would lead to substantial difficulties in the performance of the musical instrument.
In addition, in the conventional construction of the woodwind musical instrument, there is a risk that an inclination of the key cup with respect to the tone hole of the instrument occurs. In order to obtain a complete closure of the tone hole with the felt pad, it was conventionally necessary for an instrument player to preliminarily take a delicate procedure of adjustment. More particularly, the player had to insert a piece of thin paper between a felt pad and a key cup so as to compensate for the inclination of the key cup in question. However, this is a very delicate job to do and hence requires a full proficiency in so doing. Moreover, due to relatively short life of the fish skin, such delicate job is inevitably the continual burden on the player at every time whe the pad covered with the deteriorated fish skin is replaced by a new one.
In view of such disadvantages inherent to the conventional felt pad, there have long been desired to provide an improved pad which has, for example, an appropriate elasticity or flexibility, property to positively close the tone hole, long service life, good water content releasability, substantial resistance against heat and coldness.